Auto-failure on a Nat 1/Auto-success on a Nat 20 - How Often Does This Come Up?

[Thornir Alekeg]

Further tangenting my own thread, the Kano model also states that over time, excitement factors become performance factors, and performance factors become basic features. This is probably (consciously or unconsciously) the reason behind the decision to stop keen and Improved Critical from stacking - "making criticals feel special" is not much different from ensuring that criticals remain excitement factors instead of becoming performance factors.

This might also explain much of the angst about magic items. In the early days of the game, magic items were probably very much excitement factors. However, more and more gamers are starting to see them as performance factors or even basic features. I might even start a thread about it after this most recent round of discussion on magic shops dies down.

You may really be on to something here...

 

[DreadArchon]

Perhaps it's because I tend to pit the PCs against level-appropriate challenges as a DM, and because I also tend to face level-appropriate challenges as a player, but this rule has almost never come up at the table

....

So, why should we continue to have this rule in the first place? What would we lose if it was removed?

Usability. You'd have to painstakingly balance each and every encounter for every possible combinations of dice rolls or they often wouldn't work.

Then there's logic. A level 2 Monk in my campaign was fighting over a dozen level 2 Warriors, using the terrain to keep them from assisting properly and fighting defensively to keep his AC up. Without the 20 rule, it would have been impossible for the group of Warriors to ever hit him no matter what, which is absurd IMAO.

At any rate, it comes up for our group, and that doesn't mean that my encounters are wildly unbalanced. My last game involved a Warlock shooting with +12 at a Huge Constrictor Snake (Touch AC 9), and he missed twice.

 

[RFisher]

Roll a natural 20 and you roll again, adding the result to 20 plus your total modifier

I like to add 19 instead. Two nat-20s: 28; 3, 37; &c.

 

[wayne62682]

I don't mind the auto failure/success for combat roles, but I absolutely loathe them for saving throws. It does absolutely nothing to reward players who have an insanely high score, when being "immune" to those things is exactly what a high save is supposed to represent.

 

[GlassJaw]

Just to sidetrack the discussion ever so slightly...

How many consider the "natural 1 automiss/nature 20 autohit" rule a D&D sacred cow? It's been there since I can remember but I'm wonder if it's really necessary.

I know there is a variant in the DMG that makes rolling a natural 1 equal -10 and a natural 20 equal 30. Has anyone used this in their game?

I'm not sure I would do it for a standard D&D game but I think I would try it for a lower-magic/powered game where the modifiers don't get as high or varied as they do in D&D.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

How many consider the "natural 1 automiss/nature 20 autohit" rule a D&D sacred cow? It's been there since I can remember but I'm wonder if it's really necessary.

It's necessary because the d20 has a finite range of possibilities. Eventually the bonuses will outstrip all possible random results. (You know this...)

If you want to preserve some kind of random element, nat-1 and nat-20 are the solution (although not the only solution).

I know there is a variant in the DMG that makes rolling a natural 1 equal -10 and a natural 20 equal 30. Has anyone used this in their game?

-10/+10 doesn't really solve the underlying problem.

 

[Brian Gibbons]

I've been an opponent of auto-fail rules for saving throws in 3e since Skip surreptitiously slipped them in. Like anything that increases the impact of randomness, they disfavor the player, quite seriously in some cases.

Auto-failing saves is a relic of 2e, added as a patch there because without it, characters could reach a point where they could never fail, because the type of spell or level of spell had little or no effect on the difficulty of the saving throw.

One of 3e's major changes was making challenges scale with abilities: DCs increase as saves increase; SR increases as caster level goes up. In 3e, creatures can have a weak DC 11 death attack, or a strong death attack of DC 21. Gone are the days where a PC of level X could save against any spell on a 2, or had a flat 95% MR regardless of who was casting the spell on you.

It's worth nothing that auto-failing saves was not a part of the 3e rules. Depending on who you talk to, this was either deliberate or an oversight. Skip Williams added it back in via the FAQ, with no basis other than he thought that's the way the game should work; unfortunately, it made its way back into the rules in the 3.5e revision.

Sixty-four 1st level adepts casting Command on you is an EL 10 encounter. You have a ~4% chance of making all of your saving throws, and a 96% chance of failing at least one and being at their mercy, no matter what level you are or what your Will save is.

Sixteen basilisks is an EL 13 encounter. You have a 55% chance of rolling at least one natural 1 and being turned to stone permanently, no matter what level you are or what your Fortitude save is.

I find D&D challenging enough without adding in the risk of auto-death. Most characters have weaknesses; if a PC wasn't able to or chose not to shore his weaknesses, I'm fine with him not being able to make a saving throw and dying. That's part of the game. If a character, however, is prepared, takes precautions and has taken care to shore up his weak points, I find the idea of dying due to the dumb luck of a natural 1 (that would have otherwise saved) to be frustrating.

A 20th level character with a base save of 30 should not be able to die automatically to a CR 4 creature with a DC 11 attack. That's not 3e D&D.

 

[wayne62682]

I just want to mention the flipside, which I had completely forgot about: If one eliminates the "auto-fail" on a 1 for a save, then how about the situation where a character cannot possibly save against something? There are ways (read: cheesy tricks) to boost the DC of spells to an astronomical level; while I agree that a 20th level character with a base save of 30 shouldn't be able to die to a DC 11 attack, what about a 12th level character having no chance of saving due to a super high DC 50 attack? In that light, having a 20 count as an auto-success seems like a good idea, but one could not just ignore the 1 rule and leave the 20 rule or things would be unbalanced.

 

[James McMurray]

Unbalanced as in "not the same on both sides of the equation" does not necessarily mean unbalanced as in "the game is in trouble."

 

[MarkB]

The obvious example of where needing a natural 20 for success is going to come up time after time in higher-level play is secondary attacks. Yes, the fighter may be able to hit easily against a particular enemy - but when he puts 5 points into Power Attack to make the most of his greatsword, and has a total of three iterative attacks to play with, you can easily find that by his third attack he 'needs' to roll a 22 on the dice to hit, barring the auto-hit-on-20 rules.